My Foray into My Midwestern Roots

I Found Her!

Roma Goul – that is! I wrote this post on December 8, 2008 about my search for her. She was a cousin of my maternal grandfather. My information about her was very limited – approximate birth year and place, siblings and parents. After the 1910 census, when she was 6 years old, I couldn’t locate her.

Thanks to new records added to the Family Search Labs, I found her in the Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947. Roma Dell Goul was listed as having died in Chenoa, McLean County, Illinois on December 7, 1938 as the wife of Raymond Herman. Her residence was listed as Jackson County, Michigan so she must have been in Illinois for some reason – perhaps visiting someone. Her birthdate is listed as January 15, 1904.

From that record I searched for Raymond Herman in any of the other databases and found their marriage record in Michigan Marriages, 1868-1925. They were married on September 4, 1920 in Jackson County, Michigan. Roma’s birthdate is listed as 1900 and her age as 20, however the 1910 Census and her death record is in disagreement with this. I believe Roma’s birthdate and age were “fudged” so that she could marry 25 year old Raymond. She would only have been 16 years old on her wedding day.

I have yet to discover if there were any children born to the couple or why Roma went to Michigan from Ohio. I do know her older sister, Geraldine, lived in Jackson, Michigan at one time.